On thought patterns and basic states of melancholy
Once in a while, my mind retreats to a state of melancholic hopelessness. It’s not something I do on purpose, but feels more like a personality trait in me, and something I’ve written about here before. I always operate with a bass note of melancholy, the rhythm edging somewhere between the odd bad day and whole weeks bordering on despair. Having felt like this my whole life, I’ve learned to better manage it over the years, to somewhat tame this beast. All the while it still occasionally manages to sneak up on me and put me in a miserable, despondent mood – I’ve never been able to abolish it completely.
Everything seems to ring with an all-encompassing hollowness, and I lose sight of what I am actually doing with my life, what it’s all for. I practice daily finding joy in the process, being content in the small steps you have to take to improve, move and grow in all areas of life. But often, the goalpost seems so far into the future, so far out of sight, it’s hard not to lose perspective, making me question if these goals of mine, this way of spending my time, are even worth it to begin with.
It is not for a lack of dreams I get stuck. I have a lot I want to do. So many dreams and hopes, so much I would love to achieve and do with my life. I am big on dreaming, but unfortunately also big on daydreaming.
The main problem is me wanting the end result of these dreams, without necessarily understanding or wanting the lifestyle attached to it. I’ve dreamed of being a pianist for many years, but looking at my life and day-to-day, I don’t naturally gravitate to the piano, practicing and exploring its vast range several hours a day, as one should, to actually accomplish a dream like that. I’ve dreamed of owning a little cafe, serving fresh homemade bread and baked sweets, catching up with regulars and flirting with cute girls over the counter. But I don’t actually want to get up at 4 AM every day to knead dough, make pastries and later serve people coffee, clean up tables and manage staff (flirting can be exhausting at times, but I could probably handle that part).
So many of my ambitions have been floating up in the clouds, with no real understanding of the hustle required to get there. Building on this understanding of myself and how my mind works (how most minds work I suspect), I am trying to put every dream or goal of mine up against this very question: Do I want the lifestyle of the goal, or just the result?
I’m sad to discover that the foundation of most of my dreams crumbles in the face of this examination. But while it leaves a lot of darlings to be killed, no doubt, it also clears space for what actually matters or holds some sort of deeper meaning to me. It works as a metric to explore which dreams and goals are sturdy enough to implement and build upon.
Still, through these new goggles, my mind can feel like a barren field of nothingness – I’ve wasted a lot of time on shallow experiences, vague and unstructured ideas with no real depth or satisfaction. Clearing things up should theoretically provide relief and energy to take on the future. But the actual giving up of dreams, shallow or not, leaves a lot of empty dark space. I know I’m taking steps, but moving through this twilight makes it hard to spot any progress. It doesn’t exactly subtract from the meaninglessness I experience these days.